Bryan Lasme: I knew this moment would come again

The friendly at the Parkstadion gave the S04 coach the chance to give some minutes to those players that hadn’t featured much across the opening few games of the season. Goalkeeper Ron-Thorben Hoffmann, centre-backs Felipe Sanchez, Marcin Kaminski and Martin Wasinski and attackers Amin Younes and Christopher Antwi-Adjei all got a full game under their belts. “It was definitely a good thing. It’s important that all our players are at 100%,” explained Geraerts after the game.

The Schalke boss was happy with large parts of the first-half performance. “I saw lots of good things. The lads looked to get on the ball and combined nicely.” NAC’s early goal went on the list of things that need to be improved. Martin Wasinski was caught in possession in his own half, but went on to equalise 17 minutes later. “He corrected the mistake with a goal and a good performance, that shows he has a strong mentality,” praised Geraerts.

Bryan Lasme was also pleased with Wednesday’s outing, his first match since getting injured in the pre-season training camp. The striker scored the winning goal in the 39th minute. “I’ve worked hard because I knew this moment would come again at some point,” reported the 25-year-old. “I just simply had to shoot.”

The attacker has put the hard yards in away from the training pitch, but now feels fit and ready. “I’ve invested a lot of time in the gym and in individual sessions. I can now give my all again and I feel good.” The Frenchman feels the new-look squad has a good mix of players, and believes the team is getting to know each other better, while he feels his flexibility can come in handy. “I can play out wide or in a central role to finally help the team again.”